Hey all who have been following the slow transformation of "Selah." I'm posting pictures of her interior the day we bought her on salvage and after we stripped the interior down to fiberglass. If you zoom in on the green around the base of the keel trunk, you can make out the cracks and the reason for me grinding all this out and re-bedding with fiberglass ( which is in progress). I am also showing the inside of the storage area under the starboard side bench/(?settee?--not sure if this is the correct name). The port side is not as bad but someone definitely plastered much epoxy/silica trying to fix something; I just started removing the epoxy/silica in between laying up fiberglass around the bottom of the keel trunk (where the green was removed). On the starboard side, I have ground out all of the crack and ended up grinding the entire bench lengthwise as there were hidden cracks that were revealed as I started taking the old out (I found that the cracks opened into the bilge and would have let water into the storage areas if not repaired). The entire starboard side has been re-bedded with new epoxy/silica. I plan to finish out with a few layers of fiberglass lengthwise and on the end-piece. The end-pieces on both sides are where the bulkhead will be attached after I install a 3/8 plywood backing plate that has been sealed with epoxy to prevent any future water damage. I then plan to reinforce this more with a 1/8" stainless steel plate that would cover the area where the 5 bolts attach the bulkhead on either side. I finished cutting, shaping, and sanding the plywood for both sides today. Plan to start waterproofing them tomorrow with epoxy. Thank you for any and all suggestions and I hope that what I am finding and learning about Selah --and myself--might be helpful to someone else. (For some reason 174553.jpg is upside down from the actual picture. I've tried inverting it for you but it is not cooperating; but, I think you can understand what I had. I'll send a before and after hopefully next week when I have reinforced the repaired areas with some additional fiberglass.) In addition, West Systems said that I should epoxy the plywood backing plates to the repaired fiberglass ends of both benches/settees. When that is done, hopefully in two weeks, I plan to install the bulkheads. Have a good night everyone and thank you again for your interest, encouragement, and suggestions.
